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In a nutshell, The Compound Effect explains that when we take small but smart actions consistently every day to serve our goals, it will help us achieve incredible results in every aspect of our lives. It is a book that will help you reprogram yourself to achieve your goals and manage your life better.
Here are the 9 things I learned from The compound Effect by Darren Hardy:
1. Take little steps and positive actions daily
A small action towards your goal is better than no action at all. No matter how big or small, you can always take daily little steps towards your goal. Instead of running 10K in one go, aim to run 500 meters and gradually increase your distance over the weeks.
2. Success can lead to failure
Success is not about achieving your goals or finishing something. It is about maintaining the standards and the discipline that helped you to achieve those goals. Success is not a destination, it is a journey. If you become complacent because of your success, you will stop doing what got you there in the first place.
3. You make choices and choices make you
Every little choice you make has an impact on your life. They can make you or destroy you. Choices you make constantly become your habit. If you make good choices, you will develop good habits. But to be able to make good choices, you have to be conscious of your decisions. Most bad habits are developed by making unconscious choices (sleepwalking). To take control of our choices, we need to be mindful of them. Once we are aware of our choices, the decisions we make will serve us well.
5. “We are what we repeatedly do”, Aristotle
Your choices help you form your habits and habits form your future. If you have the habit of doing what needs to be done, then you will have an extraordinary life. If you have the habit of eating excessively, you will end up with excessive weight. Setting goals by itself are not enough to have a successful life. You will have to implement habits that serve those goals. For example, if you want to lose weight, then you will have to implement habits of eating more healthier snacks into the diet.
6. Being lucky is about spotting opportunities and taking actions
As the adage goes, you make your own luck. The ones who are lucky are the ones who spot an opportunity and take action. To spot a good opportunity, you will have to have goals. Goals make the opportunities a lot clearer to spot.
Goal setting is not about identifying the actions and steps to help you to reach your goal, it is also about identifying and eliminating behaviors that would prevent you to reach your goal.
7. Keep your momentum to become successful
“Big Mo”, in other words, momentum is the main drive force for success. People who constantly achieve something (no matter how big or small it is), keep achieving. People, who don’t make any effort to finish simple tasks, will remain as they are and they will not progress.
Once you get the momentum going, you should not stop when you achieve your goal. To remain successful, you will need to keep the routines and habits that make you successful.
To get the momentum going, you will have to start small. If you try to do it all at once, you won’t be able to keep your routine and eventually stop doing it. So the main idea about Big Mo is not how much you do, it is about if you show up. Once you show up, you start doing small and build upon it.
8. Your limits are the doorway to your breakthrough
When something is difficult and challenging that shows us that there is something new to learn. If we decide to stop at that point, we prevent ourselves to improve and learn something new. Because, once we overcome the limitations, we get a breakthrough. That breakthrough will help us to reach our targets and goals even faster. The improvement and progress come faster, once you do the uncomfortable things.
Check out the complete book summary for more details, or read the book summary bundle to start putting the Compound Effect to work!
